


Afterwards

by scoutdoesstuff



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoutdoesstuff/pseuds/scoutdoesstuff
Summary: After the events of the Temple of Mythal, Ellana and Sera have a quiet talk. (A fix-it fic for that conversation between the Inquisitor and Sera).





	Afterwards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ironyman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironyman/gifts).



> For ironyman. I hope you like it!

Skyhold was never quiet, not even at night. Ellana hated it. It had taken her months to adjust to living around this many people and this much noise. She still frequently longed for her clan’s small encampments under the night sky. Her Keeper had always said the night sky never looked quite right unless it was from just outside of a tent. Ellana couldn’t help but agree.

None of the noise or the abundance of people bothered Sera. She was a creature of the city. Any area with less than fifty people living on it was not a place Sera wanted to be. Sera despised the Emerald Graves and the Exalted Plains in particular. Sera loved going back to Val Royaux, though. Sera was the first one ready to leave and she’d have dozens of letters and bundles stashed away on her person. Red Jenny always had fatheads to squash after all. 

Things were oddly quiet tonight, though. The march on the Temple of Mythal had been a bloodbath. The Inquisition had gotten the knowledge they sought, but at a terrible price. The fields outside of the temple would be stained red for years to come. So many had died that Cullen was forced to organize one giant funeral for all who perished. It would’ve been impossible to hold separate events for all who had died. The whole castle felt touched by death.

Beyond her grief for her fallen soldiers, Ellana was also still nursing her own hurts caused by the revelations at the Temple of Mythal. All Dalish knew that what little knowledge the Elves had about their past was scraps at best, but to find out how little they knew – and how much had been taken from them – had been awful. Coupled with the rising guilt over the deaths of her soldiers and the horror of watching Morrigan drink from the Well of Sorrows, Ellana was more than ready to bury herself into her coverlets and not come out for a few days.

So far, no one had bothered Ellana’s rest and she couldn’t help but hope that the fates gave her a few more days to rest. She was exhausted, mentally and physically.  She didn’t know if she had it in her to go rushing headlong into battle again. She definitely knew she didn’t have it in her to be diplomatic. The last thing the Inquisition needed was for her to burst into tears at the first backhanded compliment an Orlesian courtier threw at her.

She hadn’t spent the past few days completely alone, though. Ellana had returned from her seemingly endless meetings with Josephine, Cullen, and Leliana to find Sera already in Ellana’s quarters. Upon Ellana’s arrival, Sera had pushed her towards a drawn bath with a pointed, “You still stink of horse and blood. Bathe.”

Afterwards, they had climbed into bed together, tangled up in a hug under the covers. Sera hadn’t left her side since. It was one of the sweetest things the other woman had ever done for Ellana.

Sera was currently sprawled across Ellana’s chest, letting Ellana run a hand through her hair. Sera’s weight on Ellana’s chest was a warm comfort. Sera kept her sane more often than not these days. She had a way of staying focus on what needed doing – what needed fixing -- that kept Ellana from drowning in her responsibilities and obligations.

People wanted so much from Ellana. They wanted her so badly to be holy. But how could she be holy for these people when she didn’t even believe their beliefs? How could she be holy when she wasn’t even sure what her own faith meant to her anymore?

Ellana stopped petting Sera’s hair. “Sera?”

The other woman hummed in reply. Sera was listening, then, but Ellana might have to work to get an immediate response from her. Sera was like a cat – you’d get affection from her if she liked you, but only by Sera’s choice, never by yours. 

Ellana licked her lips. Faith was a fraught subject between. Sera had an odd way of showing it, but she was a deeply devout woman. Even now, months after they fell into bed together, Sera had an incredibly hard time understanding Ellana’s reverence for her gods. The Maker was the Maker, and to question that was incomprehensible to Sera. The Dalish knew no such certainty.

Months ago, Sera and Ellana had agreed to shelve any conversation about their respective faiths. The world was ending and they were in love. Any kind of petty disagreement over their personal beliefs wouldn’t change anything. They’d never convince one another to abandon their own faith. The only real outcome was hurt feelings, so it seemed pointless. But after visiting the Temple of Mythal, Ellana felt like she was drowning.

Ellana knew she over thought things. It was in her nature as a warrior of her clan. Her decisions decided the safety of her people. She always had to be careful. She always had to be sure of the path she was choosing. Lives depended on her caution and her certainty.

A hand with calloused fingers touched Ellana’s check. “Your brain’s leaking out of your ears again.” Sera was smiling, but her eyes were worried. 

Ellana worked to plaster a smile on her face. “I’m sorry—“

Sera cut Ellana off. “No apologies. No fake smiles, either. You’re sad. It’s why I haven’t left.”

Tears abruptly sprang to Ellana’s eyes. She stared hard at the blanket covering her and Sera, trying to will the moisture away from her eyes.

Sera shifted to straddle Ellana’s lap, her hands rubbing soothingly along Ellana’s cheecks. “Oh, Inky.”

Ellana buried her face into Sera’s chest and sobbed.

“It’s the Temple of Mi-whatsits, isn’t it?” Sera said, petting Ellana’s hair. Ellana could only nod.

Sera pulled Ellana’s head away from her chest and drew Ellana’s chin up so that Ellana had to meet Sera’s eyes. “You’re going to make me feel things and talk about big mystical stuff, aren’t you?” Sera didn’t sound as angry as the subject usually made her. Ellana didn’t know what to do with that.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry –“Ellana began, but Sera cut her off with a soft kiss. 

“No, no ‘sorry’. You taught me that sometimes feelings are better outside than inside, like with me and the cookies and Lady Taraline,” Sera said.

“I know how you feel about my – the Gods and I don’t want to make you upset,” Ellana said, still crying to Ellana’s absolute horror.

“The Temple of My-whatsits was stupid,” Sera snapped, voice suddenly hard. “But more of the stupid came from it hurting you. I don’t care about those stupid fake gods. But I care about you. And you’re sad. So, I want to help you feel better.” Sera paused briefly, not meeting Ellana’s eyes. Ellana was more than happy to give Sera the time she needed to sort out her thoughts.

“You matter more. I mean, the Maker matters most, but you matter a lot. If this makes things less loud in your head, then I’ll do it,” Sera said, finally meeting Ellana’s eyes. “But only once. I won’t do it again. Ever. If you want to talk about those stupid elfy things, you have to go to Solas.”

Ellana made a face. Sera patted the side of Ellana’s face and said, “Couldn’t love you if you didn’t hate him at least a little bit.”   

“You know the strangest thing about it all is that I’m not…terribly bothered about the fact that our gods don’t fall in line with the traditions of our ancestors. It’s that we don’t know _anything_ about who we were before we were slaves. We have no knowledge of who we were as a people, as a society, before we had everything taken from us. And we’ll never know who we were because it was all intentionally destroyed by our slavers,” Ellana said.

Sera was quite for a long while after that. But she stayed in Ellana’s lap and she kept petting Ellana’s hair, so Ellana wasn’t too worried that she’d insulted the other woman somehow. Communication was getting better between them these days. They knew when and what they could push each other on philosophically, socially, sexually, but they both had a lot of hurts and those hurts tended to come out in odd ways.

“Why does it matter?” Sera finally asked, still not meeting Ellana’s eyes.

“Why does what matter?”

“Where you come from. Elvishly speaking anyway.” Sera finally meet Ellana’s eyes. There was anger there, but banked. Sera was trying to understand for Ellana’s sake. 

Ellana was quite for a moment herself. “What if someone took all of your past memories away from you?” Sera frowned. Ellana plowed on. “What if someone took your memories, your clothes, your bow, even your haircut away from you, but left you with the knowledge that you’d had those things – because everyone else has those things – but they’d been taken away from you? Then, to really rub salt in the wound, they’d destroyed every piece of evidence about what those things were, so you could never get them back?”

“I’d put an arrow in their eye for starters,” Sera said. Ellana laughed.

“I get it a little bit now – the obsession you tree huggers have with being Elvy and studying the ancient runes,” Sera said. “I still think it’s stupid. You can’t get any of it back, so what’s the point? And forests are full of bugs and roots anyway.”

“Some of us learn to walk on uneven ground so we don’t trip over a root in the Emerald Graves and fall face first into an ant’s nest,” Ellana replied, desperately trying to smoother a smile.

“You’ve had a shit week so I’m not going to hide bees in your breakfast tomorrow for bringing that up again,” Sera said. “But I am going to do this!”

Suddenly, a pillow connected with Ellana’s face knocking her off balance. She scrambled to regain her balance but it was all for nothing as Ellana tumbled off the bed and onto her ass. Sera howled with laughter. Somehow the other woman had managed to stay on the bed. Ellana took a few seconds to be quietly, hideously jealous of her nimble and flexible lover. Then, Ellana’s mind went down a completely different track.

“Darling?” Ellana asked, after Sera’s gales of laughter had subsided a bit. “Why don’t you come down here?”

Sera’s laughter abruptly stopped. Her eyes peered over the edge of the bed into Ellana’s. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ellanna said. “I’d really rather like you down here with me.” Ellana propped herself up on her elbows and smiled winningly up at her lover. “It’s ever so cold, you know.”

Sera crawled off the bed and into Ellana’s lap. “You’re feeling better then?”

Ellana smiled – for real this time -- and said, “I think that I am. It was like you said – sometimes feelings have to be outside rather than inside.”

Sera drew Ellana close and said, “Good. I missed you. I’m glad you’re back.” 

Sera and Ellana’s mouths met. It had only been a few days since they’d done anything like this but it felt like it had been months. Ellana pressed closer to Sera, seeking her mouth, hands pulling at her clothes.

“Let me take care of you this time,” Ellana said, her mouth still touching Sera’s.

Sera pulled away just far enough so that she could meet Ellana’s eyes without going cross eyed. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Ellana said, pulling Sera closer once more. “Yeah, it’s my turn now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I liked a bunch of the pairings my gift recipient had listed, but after going back and rewatching That conversation with Sera I knew this one was the one I needed to write. Hopefully it's better than one in-game! 
> 
> I noticed in certain sections of the game you see a part of Sera that's incredibly wise and even (a little) quiet, so I tried to blend that in with the brashness that she's so well known for. I always figured she'd be a little softer with the woman she loves than the way the game sometimes portrayed her.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
